The Guardian gods-Chapter 507

But even as he plummeted, his senses—broad and far-reaching—stretched beyond the limits of ordinary perception. And there... he felt it.

Vellok.

A presence so alien, so commanding, it was like a beacon in the cosmic sea. It pulled at something deep within Ikenga, not in body, but in memory.

He guided his attention upward—toward his other eye, the one affixed to the moon—and with a subtle command, it turned its gaze downward. Through this celestial lens, he beheld the full, dreadful beauty of Vellok’s true form: chained in radiance, wings like broken divinity, and that hand—freed only briefly—glowing with impossible allure.

And then came the sound.

That bell tone—soft, sacred, enduring—reached him even as he fell, weaving through space like a hymn. Upon hearing it, Ikenga closed his eyes, caught not in fear, but in memory.

It came to him like incense drifting into a dream: Sunday mornings, when he was still a boy. Walking past the rusted iron gates of a modest church. The sound of the bell then was not unlike this—gentle, rhythmic, filled with something both ancient and intimate. It had marked the beginning of worship, of quiet awe.

The echo of that sacred chime mingled now with the distant howl of the wind against his falling form.

"Demons... and now angels. What else does this world have to offer?"

Ikenga mused inwardly, his voice quiet amid the roar of reentry.

He opened his eyes, the heat of descent glowing across his face. And there, just before him, loomed the massive Abyssal Portal—a gaping wound in the world’s fabric, leading to Zarkov’s domain.

Still carrying the gift he got for Keles, and with the weight of past and present pressing upon him, Ikenga stepped forward into the portal, leaving behind a sky that still rang with the memory of heaven’s broken bell.

The sound of the bell continued to ring—soft, divine, and unnaturally resonant. But it was not merely a sound; it was judgment, a wave of power that swept across the battlefield like a silent decree from a forgotten god.

Each reverberation in the air carried with it a distinct consequence, as if reality itself responded to the rhythm of Vellok’s awakening.

The first wave struck the battlefield.

All at once, the demons—those snarling beasts of the abyss, reveling in the slaughter—froze. For the briefest moment, silence fell over them. Then came the consequence.

Countless demons exploded into ash.

No time for screams. No time for escape. They crumbled, their forms disintegrating into pale dust, carried away by the rising breeze. Even those who had begun retreating through the abyssal portal were dragged back, caught mid-escape and undone. The sound had no borders, no mercy.

The lands they had defiled and scorched black—lands soaked in despair and rot—began to shimmer. As if time reversed itself, a green flush swept outward in the sound’s wake. Purification. Grass emerged from dead soil. Flowers bloomed where blood had once pooled. The taint of the abyss was scrubbed clean.

From her hidden vantage beyond the battlefield, Vorenza—commander of the invasion, high demoness of cruel strategy—watched in growing anger. Her senses, sharp and attuned, mapped the battlefield in real-time.

She frowned deeply as her vision swam with loss.

"Years... of progress..." she hissed.

Years of careful maneuvering, of corruption, of slow conquest—all of it was gone in mere heartbeats. The regions they had claimed were now greener than before, as though mocking her. She watched her campaign collapse in silence, returned not to ruin—but worse—to renewal.

The ratmen, who had been clawing and dying beneath the demons’ cruelty, felt the bell differently.

The first wave made them pause—alert, uncertain.

The second wave washed over them like a balm. Their broken limbs knit together, their festering wounds sealed, strength returning to their shaking legs. They looked up in awe, their sunken eyes reflecting something they had not felt in years: hope.

The third wave came, and with it, a miracle. Every demon still locked in battle with them vanished into ash before their eyes. The claws that had struck them were no longer there. The snarls they had feared were silenced. The battlefield was quiet... for a moment.

And then came the fourth wave.

The sound changed.

What had been heavenly now twisted into something piercing, maddening. What was once a balm became a blade. The ratmen screamed and clutched their oversized ears, trying to block out the agony. But it was inside them, thrumming in their skulls like a thousand needles.

Blood poured from their noses, then their eyes, and finally from their ears as the pressure mounted.

Brains leaked through their fingers as they clawed at their own heads, driven mad by the crescendo of divine sound.

The fifth and final wave was the death knell.

It came like a final strike of a cosmic gong, and in its wake—

Silence.

Not a ratman remained standing.

Their bodies fell lifeless to the ground, heads detonated in a grotesque burst, like candles snuffed out. The field was littered not with corpses, but headless husks, still twitching as if confused by the sudden end.

Zarvok felt it the moment Vellok’s presence rippled across the veil of the world. He saw the strange form the being had taken—a bizarre fusion of radiant divinity and lowly flesh—and his curiosity ignited into ambition. A high-tier angel, bound within the crude frame of a goblin? It was madness. Brilliant, terrifying madness. The mages who found this world had tampered with powers far beyond their station, and Zarvok was determined to unravel their secrets.

To bind such a celestial force within such a pitiful vessel—it spoke of new unknown rites, forbidden knowledge, and a world brimming with untapped power and benefit. If he could seize this world, claim its secrets for himself, then his status in the Abyss would rise beyond imagination. His conquest wouldn’t just be another layer swallowed in the chaos—it would become legend. His dominion would be one of the most renowned abyssal layers across all the planes.

And so, word of Vellok spread like wildfire. The very sight of him sent tremors through the demonic ranks. The moment he appeared, everything changed.

Gone were the reckless charges of demons eager to die in the fires of battle. Now, there was hesitation—fear. They moved with uncharacteristic caution, heads tilting skyward as if expecting holy wrath to descend at any moment. Whispers of an angel walking the world had made them uneasy.

For demons, death is usually a minor inconvenience. When slain, their essence is drawn back to the Abyss, reborn in the river Styx—perhaps altered, perhaps diminished, but never truly gone. Death has never been a thing to fear for them.

But angels are different.

Angels bring true death. The kind that severs a soul from existence entirely, erasing it from the cosmic cycle. A demon slain by an angel doesn’t return. There is no rebirth, no redemption—only oblivion.

This is why, for all their hate, demons fear angels. And the feeling is mutual. For just as angels can destroy demons utterly, so too can demons annihilate angels in return. Their mutual hatred is as old as the Abyss itself—a war written into the bones of the universe.

Fifth-stage demons had become a rare sight in the ongoing war, their presence dwindling as the conflict dragged on and casualties mounted. Amidst this shifting landscape, one figure steadily rose through the ranks—Malzor, the stone-skinned commander of the gargoyles.

He had long been overlooked by the empire and even by the goblin mages. Not a demon king, not cloaked in grand titles or noticable bloodlines, Malzor was dismissed as nothing more than a brute—a powerful creature who had carved out a sliver of influence through raw strength and sheer tenacity. To them, he was just a warlord clinging to the edge of chaos, suppressing rival factions in his corner of the Abyss and leeching whatever gains the war could offer.

And in fairness, the empire’s assumptions weren’t entirely wrong. A sixth-tier imperial mage, deployed with intent, could likely end Malzor’s rise in a single strike. But so far, they hadn’t bothered. With the more urgent and dangerous conflicts unfolding on the other side of the world, Malzor’s progress seemed insignificant—a spark too small to warrant attention.

Ironically, that negligence worked in his favor.

Rather than crushing him, the empire found another use for Malzor. They began deploying more and more of their expendable ratmen troops to his region—not to support him, but in the hope that the demons under his command and the swarming atmen would annihilate each other. A slow grind of attrition, a quiet purge by proxy.

But the plan backfired.

Instead of weakening him, the constant skirmishes with the ratmen only served to bolster Malzor’s standing among his kind. His forces grew fiercer, more organized, more united. Every slain ratman meant another soul to consume, another chance to evolve. While the ratmen’s spirits were weak—lacking the supernatural potency of magical creatures—the sheer volume of them was enough to help many demons under Malzor ascend to the third stage.